Making Do
by kepulver
Summary: Late night with Low Light; Firewall is having trouble handling her recent losses on Cobra Island and Low Light is his usual helpful, cheery self about it


Making Do

**Joe Base, Wright-Patterson AFB, 0-dark-thirty:**

The worst thing about the nightmares, Firewall thought as she paced down the hall of the Joe base toward the commissary, was that they didn't act the way they were supposed to.  _Proper_ nightmares were supposed to happen every single night and be the same way every time and you'd get to wake up screaming, have a good cry and go back to sleep.

But apparently, these nightmares had never gotten the goddamn memo. Instead they insisted on behaving any damn way they wanted to. Showing up whenever they felt like it, acting like normal dreams and then *BAM* hitting her in the face with the nightmare part and leaving her to wake up sad but not sad enough for a really good therapeutic cry.

It was enough to make you want to punch your own subconscious. 

She'd woken up tonight after yet another uncooperative dream.  This one had been one of the worst.  In it, Mainframe and Daemon were hanging around Mainframe's office, laughing and joking and generally being alive.  She was there too, watching them and knowing that while they were cracking jokes in binary, they weren't supposed to be here. They were dead; she'd heard Daemon's neck crack and Mainframe…maybe in the movies someone could survive the type of explosion that killed him but not in the real world.   They shouldn't have -- couldn't have been there, but there they were and part of her wondered if maybe, just maybe, they'd all been wrong.

But that wasn't the worst part. 

The worst part had been the sly, sneaky feeling of being inconvenienced by their return. _Great_, part of her had thought, _now I have to move offices again and I just got settled in the new place. Thanks a lot guys…_

That had been when she'd woken up, face damp with tears and stomach rumbling with the sudden need for something full of carbs and empty calories. 

Padding down the hallway, she could hear the sound of the TV in the distance. _Low Light_, she thought. Low Light's famous late-night crappy movie vigils were well known throughout the Joes. There didn't seem to be a movie out there that Low Light wouldn't watch. Well, okay, there wasn't a Grade-Z movie out there Low Light wouldn't watch.  The night a group of guys had tried to sit through _Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS_, with him had achieved almost legendary status.  Or rather, their high-pitched girlish screams had. 

Firewall walked past the lounge and looked in. No Low Light? She stepped in further, glancing around. Nope, no sign of him, which was almost creepier than finding him sitting there like usual, hands on his knees, staring straight ahead at the TV as if receiving messages from some B-Movie god.

"Looking for someone?" a raspy voice behind her asked. 

Firewall yelped and turned, hating herself for losing her cool. "Damnit, Low-Light!" she said, swinging at him in a not-at-all-playful swat. "Don't _do_ that!"

Low Light smirked, taking a step back. "Or what? You'll almost hit me?" He stepped around her, heading for his spot on the couch. Watching him settle in was like watching someone turn to stone. 

Firewall scowled at him, angry beyond reason at the slight. It wasn't the first time a Joe had snubbed her but it was the first time since Cobra Island. "That how you always treat your teammates?" She meant it to come out sounding disparaging, but in her ears it sounded whiny, petulant. _Stop it; you're not a kid here!_ she told herself.

"Yes." Low Light didn't look away from the TV. "I'm a jerk. It's in my contract."

Firewall felt tears begin to prick at her eyes. _Oh no,_ she thought. _No, no. Not here, not in front of this asshole._ "No kidding." _Lame, very lame._

Low Light snorted. 'You don't like me, you can leave." He still didn't bother to look at her. "Door's behind you."

Firewall glanced behind her, and then shrugged. "It's a free country," she said, crossing her arms over her chest and widening her stance slightly, as if to take up more space.  It was a stupid and childish gesture, but it made her feel good.  It was like she was flipping him off with her entire being; a full-body bird. "Besides, lounge is open for anyone, not just troglodytes with bad taste in movies."

Low Light sighed. "Fine," he said. "Sit down and shut up."

Firewall dropped into a chair, curling her feet under her. "In case you've forgotten, I got a promotion," she said. "I'm the head of the Joes' computer security department now."

"You _are_ the Joes' computer security department," Low Light shot back. "Remember?"

It was like being punched. Firewall felt the wind go out of her in a whoosh. "You fucker," she said and this time she couldn't stop the tears. "You total asshole…"

To his credit, Low Light had the decency to look embarrassed. "Sorry," he said, glancing away from her and the TV. "I…."

"Fuck you and your sorry!" Firewall's feet slapped onto the floor as she stood up. In two steps she crossed over and stood over Low Light, finger in his face. "I'm having enough trouble with all this Super Secret Squirrel bullshit without having to take crap from you! You know how long it was before I stopped hearing the sound of Daemon's neck crack? Or how it felt to watch Cobra Commander get away because Spirit was too fucking stupid to let _me_ go to get him? Or what it felt like to find out that Mainframe's gone? Or what it feels like to think that _everybody_ thinks it should have been me instead of them?"

Low Light didn't answer, he just looked up at her with that same neutral expression he always had and that just made her angrier. She turned away from him, pacing the room now, all but screaming and not caring who heard it.

"It's not fair!" She waved her arms as she walked, managing to continue walking a straight line through pure luck. "I never wanted to do this! I never wanted to be a fucking special missions Delta Force hoohah GI Joe! I wanted to write computer code! And hack things! And…and marry somebody with Tom Cruise's body and Bill Gates' money and Steve Jobs's talent!  I was _good_ at what I did. Even in prison people were impressed with me! And then I come here and it's nothing but "you suck, why'd we get stuck with you?" and "Who the hell do you think you are?" and "Move your lazy ass" and then they send me out and some freak in a snake costume kills the only friends I had here!"

She turned on Low Light again. "Not that you care," she said, her voice having picked up a buzz from the shouting. "What the hell do you know about not being good enough?"

"Everything," Low Light said. "Absolutely everything."

It was not the answer she'd been expecting. She wasn't entirely sure _what_ answer she'd been expecting but somehow, this wasn't it.  "Bull," she said.

"All my life, my father said that he was ashamed of me," Low Light said. His voice was quiet, the same neutral, emotionless tone he always spoke with. "He was usually drunk when he said it, but that didn't change anything. He looked me in the face and told me he wished I'd never been born. That he'd never had a little scrawny wimp like me for a son."

She certainly hadn't been expecting this.  There was something about the way Low Light said the words, with no anger, as if he were talking about the weather, that made it all sound worse. "…That's...awful," she said, grudgingly.

Low Light shrugged. "It was true," he said. "I was scared of everything. 'Course, it was partly because my dad was a raving alcoholic and you never knew what kind of a mood he'd be in, but that fact never really occurred to either of us at the time."

_I am _not_ going to feel sorry for him!_ Firewall thought, fighting against the first waves of sympathy. "So what happened? How'd a wimp end up on the Joes?"

"When I was ten my dad dragged me off to the local junkyard with a rifle and a flashlight and told me I'd stay there until I killed twenty-two rats," Low Light said. "I was scared of loud noises and animals and the dark so he figured he'd beat all three fears at once. Tough love."

"Raving psycho love, more like it," Firewall said.  "What happened?"

Low Light smirked, the expression almost a genuine smile. "I couldn't do it,' he said. "I was there for two hours, alone, so scared I pissed myself and I couldn't find a single rat. Every time I'd aim for one, they'd run before I could pull the trigger. I finally sat down and bawled like a baby until he sobered up and took me home."

"Was he mad?" Firewall walked back over to the couch, but didn't take a seat. 

"Furious," Low Light said. "I'd proved him right, far as he was concerned. But, being out there and being that scared made me never want to be that scared again. I learned how to fake being brave around my dad.  Wasn't good enough at it at first, but he finally started believing that he'd 'fixed' me and I got to the point where I couldn't tell the difference. I grew up, graduated, joined the Army and ended up here."

"What a bastard…" 

Low Light shrugged. "He's sobered up," he said. "'Round about the time I made it to the Joes. My sister and I had left home, so Mom left him. Rude awakening finally snapped him out of it."

"It doesn't bother you?"  Firewall stared at Low Light. "I mean, there's being stoic and then there's being psychotic."

Low Light took a breath and let it out. "I had nightmares for years,' he said. "Almost every night. About being in the dark, about being a failure, about rats coming for my face. Made it hard to sleep, so I'd stay up as much as I could. Got to where I wasn't afraid of the dark anymore. Loud noises didn't bother me as much when I got older and I found out that I was a damn good marksman when I was in Basic. Ended up in sniper school, then ended up a Joe."

"Okay, so you're saying if it wasn't for your dad traumatizing you, you wouldn't be the man you are today?" Firewall asked, one eyebrow raised. "How terribly Nietzsche of you…"

Low Light's eyebrow quirked up in turn. "Huh?"

"'That which does not kill me, makes me stronger,'" Firewall said. "I thought you Joes had that one stitched on a sampler somewhere." 

Low Light snorted. "Nahh, not my speed," he said. "Mine's: ' History is made at night. Character is what you are in the dark'."

"_Buckaroo Banzaii_,'" Firewall said. "You do know that's actually a _good_ movie, right?"

"One of my favorites," Low Light said. "You feeling better yet?"

Firewall blinked. "A little," she said. "Still not looking forward to going back to sleep."

"They're just dreams," Low Light said. "They can't hurt you."

"No, just make me wish I could curl up and die," Firewall said.

Low Light sighed, then patted the couch beside him. "Then sit down and shut up," he said. "_Last Jet to Killer Karate College_ is on next. Somebody in it I want you to meet."

"Who?"

"Friend of mine named Mac," Low Light said, pausing for a moment. "Died a few years ago.  Was a hell of a guy; you'd have liked him."


End file.
